Windsor School Budget Battle Yields Higher Spending Plan

Adopted Windsor school budget calls for 4 percent or $2.64 million increase.

WINDSOR — After a protracted, contentious discussion and dueling budget proposals, the board of education adopted a spending plan that included more funding than Superintendent Craig Cooke was seeking.

The school board voted 5 to 4 to approve a $67.86 million budget that will increase spending over the current year by $2.64 million, or 4.05 percent.

In January, Cooke proposed a $67.36 million budget that would have increased spending by $2,14 million, or 3.28 percent.

That spending plan called for reducing staff by a total of 25.2 positions, including eliminating all 12 of the district's kindergarten paraprofessional positions and a dozen special education paraprofessional positions.

But on Tuesday school board member Leonard Lockhart, a Democrat, proposed an amendment to Cooke's plan that would reinstate the 12 kindergarten paraprofessional positions, at a cost of $480,000, and add $20,000 for funding a school residency investigator's position that had been marked for removal.

Republican members of the school board voiced opposition to that plan.

"I can't support this, 3.28 percent is too high," said school board Vice President Paul Panos.

Then school board member Michaela Fissel, a Republican, offered an amendment that would reinstate the 12 paraprofessional positions and add $55,000 for the residency investigator's position, but would eliminate two new kindergarten teaching positions that Cooke had proposed. Fissel's amendment also would have eliminated three existing teaching positions, reduced a safety assistant position at the high school, moved the funding for a community coordinator's position from the budget to a grant, and subtracted a reading teaching position.

Fissel's proposal would have left the budget increase at 3.28 percent, but Democrats balked at that proposal and defeated it by a 5 to 4 vote, with school board President Cristina Santos, a Republican who filed to change her party affiliation to Democrat in January, voting with Democrats.

The school board then voted on Lockhart's proposal and it was approved by a 5 to 4 vote, with Santos again voting with the Democrats.

Santos said that while Cooke's original budget proposal moved the district forward in the area of student achievement, board members heard from many groups in the community who were opposed to the paraprofessional cuts and talked about how important they were "to the overall success of our youngest students."

"The board felt compelled to add these positions back into our budget," she said.

The meeting was also highlighted by Republican concerns over whether figures in Cooke's budget proposal were accurate, including the number of people working in the district and past accounting practices.

"I'm not comfortable that the numbers in this budget are reliable," Republican Ronald Eleveld said.

Democrat Darleen Klase responded that the purpose of the meeting was not to reconcile past accounting practices.

"If we're still at the point of not believing the position count, then we have a way different problem," she said.

Cooke said he believed that much of the confusion over budget numbers relates to the district adding transparency to the process, especially in the area of adding grants information.

Cooke added that he felt the adopted budget add many supports to students, from technology to additional remedial support to low class sizes.

The proposal must still be approved by the town council. The school and municipal budget are voted on together at referendum in May.